4051. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 8 August 1823

Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esq^re/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ xxx
Postmark: E/ 11 AU 11/ 1823
Endorsement: 8. Aug^t. 1823
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 8 Aug 1823

My dear Grosvenor

I pray you, pay my Tailors bill for me, poor Hydes

⁽¹⁾

successor, M^cCallan

⁽²⁾

at N^o 28 Leicester Square. The amount is £10.1.0. When you hear that it bears date in June 1821 & that the only new clothes I have had since that time consist of two pairs of Cockbaine

⁽³⁾

built pantaloons, you will not think that I am beggaring myself by any wasteful expenditure in dress. It is true that my wardrobe stands now in need of replenishing. But you told me some time ago you could introduce me to a Hider who charges less that £4 8 for “a coat sup extra black cloth”, & therefore I will rather wait till this Modere

⁽⁴⁾

can take my measure, than send an order to M^cCallan who charges thus highly, & puts me in a dandy cut.

You will not be sorry to hear that I have at length pretty well got rid of my cold, & of its consequences. Nothing I believe is wanting to bring me again into good condition, but the company of some charitable friend who would be willing to take me as his guide among the mountains. We have had the coldest summer, & one of the wettest that I ever remember: yet in spite of the weather if you could give yourself a holyday we would enjoy ourselves heartily both out of doors & within. You know that the journey from this place to London has been shortened so that the traveller arrives in town to supper on the second night.

Rumpelstilzchen

⁽⁵⁾

has been poorly, but is now in better health, & was yesterday created a Baron for good service against the rats. Since I wrote to you concerning this worthy Cat, a patronymic has been added to his name: for upon discovering that he was born in the house of a certain humble minister of the law, I immediately named him Macbum.

⁽⁶⁾

Your godson is delighted with my description of Lodore

⁽⁷⁾

he says “it is a fierce poem & makes a noise like the forge-hammer.”

God bless you my dear Grosvenor
yrs as ever
RS.

Notes

1. Hyde (d. 1820) had been Southey’s tailor in London.[back]

2. J. McCallan & Co., tailors of Leicester Square, London.[back]

3. John Cockbaine (1786–1873), a Keswick draper and tailor.[back]

4. ‘moderate’ – a term used of a Spaniard whose politics were centrist, but here for a tailor whose charges were moderate.[back]

5. One of the Greta Hall cats.[back]

6. i.e. the son (‘mac’ in Gaelic) of a bum bailiff (a bailiff who was empowered to collect debts). [back]

7. ‘The Cataract of Lodore, Described in Rhymes for the Nursery, By One of the Lake Poets’, published in Joanna Baillie (ed.), A Collection of Poems, Chiefly Manuscript, And From Living Authors (London, 1823), pp. 280–283. The poem describes the Lodore Falls, formed by the beck from Watendlath Tarn, as it descends towards the southern end of Derwentwater.[back]

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4051. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 8 August 1823

4051. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 8 August 1823

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer